


dancing through life

by rosycheeked



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:29:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosycheeked/pseuds/rosycheeked
Summary: And there was Matthew, in love with them both.
Relationships: Cordelia Carstairs/James Herondale, Cordelia Carstairs/Matthew Fairchild, Matthew Fairchild/James Herondale
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	dancing through life

**Author's Note:**

> hi!
> 
> I have no idea what I'm doing. I wrote this in a haze a day after reading this book. I have so many WIPs it's not even funny. the next thing I post will be pynch if it's the last thing I do, though. so. enjoy this, y'all.
> 
> E
> 
> note: title is from "Dancing Through Life" from _Wicked_. I thought it quite apt.

Another ball, another ballroom, another night of leaning against the wall looking cavalier. Masks were far more tiring when one was sober, Matthew mused. But no one was paying him any attention, so if his carefree air wavered as he watched the dancers whirl, well. No one would be the wiser.

And if no one had noticed that Matthew Fairchild had become a wallflower, certainly they would not notice the intensity with which he watched his fellow Shadowhunters dance across the ballroom floor. They would not see who, specifically, he was watching.

It had started with Cordelia. No, that wasn’t fair. He had realized what he felt for Cordelia first. Oh, she may have thought herself undesirable, but she was beautiful indeed. In gear she was an unstoppable force, wielding a sword of generations. In gowns she was just as fierce, quick-witted and kind, and so terribly easy to fall for.

For so long he had looked at her and thought: maybe, maybe, maybe. He made her smile, and she made him laugh, and where she brushed against him he was warm again. And then she had danced with James.

James, _his_ James, who Matthew had loved for longer than he’d known the words that fit into the cavern in his heart. He had seen James first, after all, dark to Matthew’s light, heartbreakingly handsome and born to be a hero. They’d said _parabatai_ , and that was love too, but it had filled the hole all wrong. It had left spaces where there should not be spaces. It had left wounds of its own.

James, his brother in all but blood. Matthew loved him. Matthew was in love with him.

He was such a fool. And he would do anything for them. Cordelia had looked him in the eye one night and said, “Matthew, you really ought to drink less.”

“You’re more yourself when you’re not completely sloshed,” James had added, and there stood his two great weaknesses side by side.

Matthew had barely gotten out the usual excuses—he was more fun when he drank, life would be boring were he sober all the time, and so on—before Cordelia cut him off. “Just consider it, Math? You know we only want you to be happy.”

And now he was a little over a month sober. The irony was, of course, that as long as James and Cordelia were a “we,” Matthew would not be happy. Could not be happy.

The irony was, of course, that Matthew had been the one to get them together—truly together—in the first place. He had been drinking with Magnus Bane, and their idle chat about waistcoats had inevitably turned to James and Cordelia, as every conversation he had somehow did.

Matthew had been the one to figure out that the bracelet James wore was cursed. That Grace Blackthorn had been binding his _parabatai_ since he was a child. When the bracelet was gone and the spell broken, Matthew had stood beside James as his eyes lit with a fire Matthew hadn’t seen for years.

James had breathed, “Cordelia—“ and then dashed off to tell her he loved her after all.

That was when the last of his hope had flickered out. Given the chance, though, he would do it again. Just to see the light in James’ eyes. Just to stand beside them as they loved each other for everyone to see. Just to keep them in his life, he would let that last hope die a thousand times.

And to watch them dance? He would have to be blind not to see the way they held each other, the way they looked at each other, the way they smiled at each other like the rest of the world had fallen away. Matthew watched his _parabatai_ and his _parabatai_ ’s wife, the only two people in the world he could not have. Anyone could see the way they loved each other: it was all-encompassing.

And there was Matthew, in love with them both. What he would give to be anyone else. To be unfeeling again, to be cold. Sometimes he wondered how much they knew, how much they had pieced together. On a whim he had told Cordelia about the green carnation; surely she had shared that with her husband. James could feel Matthew’s emotions through their bond, to an extent; he knew of Matthew’s heartache, but he knew not whom Matthew yearned for.

If it was the last thing he did, Matthew would keep it that way. For them to know would be to lose his friendship with them both, which on most days was all that kept him going. They would spurn him for this love he had harbored for too long. Besides, he did not deserve them in the least: they were heroes both. Matthew was a party-loving playboy with a reputation as a drunk. He was a charmer and a golden boy. He was—perfectly content to stand to the side.

He told himself this again and again, pointedly not thinking about tangling his fingers in Cordelia’s red hair and pulling her close, or gazing into James’ golden eyes and not looking away. He did not fantasize about lying beside James and feeling his breath on his own cheek, or Cordelia embracing him like a lover, holding him like he was worthy of love itself. 

He told himself it was his own fault, that he had missed his chance, that he was an awful friend besides to even have considered getting between them, to keep closing his eyes at night and dreaming of illicit things.

So he will say nothing at all. He will just stand there, alone, and watch them dance.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked—whatever this is. Comments, as always, will inevitably lead to you making my day.
> 
> <3


End file.
